This application has subject matter in common with U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/318,470 (“LED projection night light”); 12/149,163 (“Removable LED light device”); 12/073,889 (“LED track light device); 12/073,095 (“LED light with changeable position with Prefereable power source”); 12/007,076 (“LED light with changeable geometric system”); 12/003,691 (“LED light with changeable geometric dimension features”); 12/003,809 (“LED light with changeable features”); 11/806,711 (“Multiple LED light with adjustable angle features”); 11/527,631 (“LED Night light with interchangeable display unit”); 11/498,881 (“Poly Night light”); 11/255,981 (“Multiple light source Night Light”); 11/094,215 (“LED Night light with Liquid optics medium); (“Night light with fiber optics)”; (“Fiber Optic light kits for footwear”); 11/498,874 (“Illumination for LED night light”); 11/527,629 (“Time Piece with LED night light”); 11/527,628 (“Multiple Function Night light with Air Freshener”); 11/806,284 (“LED Night light with more than one optics mediums”); 11/806,285 (“LED Night Light with multiple function”); and 11/806,711 (“Multiple LEDs Light with adjustable angle function”).
The invention relates to an LED light having pinhole-imaging means for projecting a desire image on a wall, ceiling, floor, desired surface, or desired location to enable people to view the desired image. The desired image may include a star(s), moon, planet, silver-river, universal image, cartoon character, family photos, or other favorite image to create a pleasurable mood when people are in a dark environment or trying to fall asleep. It is especially important for youth or kids to let them have their own favorite image surround them when in their room.
The current invention has the following features:
1. The current invention may incorporate a simple optics-assembly to obtain the pinhole-imaging features using just one LED and one pinhole-unit, and a related power source, circuit, and trigger means for causing the LED(s) to turn on and turn off according to predetermined functions, duration, and effects.
2. The invention may incorporate an LED position adjust-means that can change image position, location, size, brightness, and related image specifications.
3. The current invention has no hazardous material such as a glass lens, no hinge box with projector means inside, and no need to precisely position a variety of lenses.
4. The current invention may incorporate an adjustable-means to adjust the distance between a pinhole-unit and LED to get a desire image quality in any of a variety of indoor spaces.
5. The current invention's pinhole imaging will project into three dimensions depending on the pinhole-unit's surface pinhole arrangement. As long as a pinhole exists on the pinhole-unit's surface, the LED light beam will pass through it and form an image on a surface that is perpendicular to the light beam emitting direction.
6. The night light of the current invention can fit a majority of market-available housings so as to provide an acceptable appearance, size, and shape and meet U.S. safety standard requirements while using an alternating (AC) current power source. It also can powered by a direct current (DC) power source such as batteries or rechargeable batteries that may be connected with an AC adaptor, transformer, solar power, wind power, or generator to recharge the rechargeable batteries.
7. The night light of the current invention may have an adjustable distance between the LED and the pinhole-unit to provide a clear image on any desired surface(s).
8. The night light of the current invention may have an alternative arrangement for battery position, location, or orientation to allow the LED's light beams to have the best position to pass though the pinholes and get the best light effects and performance to meet viewer's requirements.
9. The night light of the current invention may have a spiral arrangement for batteries so the LED may be put near center locations and emit light as close to an edge as possible, which will create more pinhole-imaging to cover wider areas of all walls and thereby provide the best light performance and image size.
10. The LED light of the current invention has a super low cost for the pinhole-unit, which can made of paper, a metal piece, a plastic sheet, a blister sheet, or wood.
11. In the current invention, the pinhole size is preferably between 0.1 mm and 50 mm (+/−50%) with any geometric shape.
12. The current invention preferably uses an LED with a wide viewing angle to cover a wider area with pinhole-imaging performance for indoor use on all walls and ceilings.
13. A preferred LED for the current invention is a blue color LED; next preferred is a green color LED; next preferred is a white color LED; and least preferred is a red color LED.
14. The current invention the number of LEDs is preferably just ONE because illumination of more than one LED at a time will result in a double ghost image, which may make a viewer's eye very uncomfortable. It is within the scope of the invention to provide a plurality of LEDs or color changing LEDs, but only ONE LED should emit the light at any time to prevent the double or ghost image from occurring.
15. The basic pinhole imaging theory utilized by the LED, pinhole-unit, and housing member arrangement of the current invention is illustrated in FIGS. (5) (5-1) (5-2) (5-3), FIG. (6), and FIGS. (7-1)(7-2)(7-2)(7-4).
16. The current invention also provides a method to project a special logo, design, artwork, word, message, sign, or advertisement by using tiny pinholes whose size should be between 0.1 mm and 2.5 mm in diameter (+/−50%) which is similar To a Dot-Matrix arrangement that uses a plurality of small pinholes to form a single message such as the one shown in FIG. 1-2 (12m) (12n), in which “I” and “U” are made of possibly 50 tiny pinholes to provide clear pinhole-imaging on a ceiling or walls.
This plurality of tiny pinholes, dot-matrix like arrangement will create all kinds of message, logo, or art to meet a wide variety of market requirements.
17. The current invention provides a perfect design for an LED light which has no switch visible on the unit because any switch means is already electric connected with one part of the housing-member so that a user need only touch a special housing-member to trigger the electric system for illumination and provide a predetermined light function, timing, duration, and effects.
18. The current invention may use a unique interchangeable power source construction (as shown FIG. 2, FIG. 3, FIG. 7-8, FIG. 7-9) that includes a sealed-unit and battery-pack for the LED light. The sealed-unit is known from the inventor's copending applications listed above. The “sealed-unit” has all electric components, including a prong, circuit, trigger means, LED or LED connector sealed within to provide AC power source to turn on and turn off the said LEDs. The “sealed-unit” also can be replaced by a battery-pack which has all electric components within, including batteries, a circuit, trigger means, and LED or LED connectors to provide DC power for night light illumination according to predetermined functions, timing, duration, and effects. A suitable “sealed unit” is shown for example in FIG. S of the following copending applications:    (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/527,631, LED Night light with interchangeable display unit.    (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/498,881, Poly Night light.    (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/255,981, Multiple light source Night Light.    (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/094,215, LED Night light with Liquid optics medium Ser. No. 11/094,215.
19. The current invention may include a spherical ball having rotating means to change the position of the ball and thereby change the image. The sphere has different shaped pinholes on each half ball to change the image while rotating ball as desired. For example, multiple differently-shaped pinholes may be provided at certain areas of the ball's substrate such as at 60 degree intervals (6 areas), 90 degree intervals (4 areas), or 180 degree intervals (2 areas such as in FIG. 3) so that adjust-means or rotating-means can be used to rotate the ball to so allow people to select a variety of different images from one LED light.
The current invention results in a big improvement over all prior art, including the following US patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,264 (Sutton) discloses a projection night light preferably including a 7 Watt bulb (408). Because the bulb outputs too much heat, a big distance from the bulb to the optics means is required and one needs to use glass material, which is a very big danger to the user. Furthermore, Sutton uses a glass reflection lens (604) to cause the image to be seen on the display screen (102), which is a too complicated construction and not practical for low cost application. In addition, the glass lens is much too fragile glass lens and also too heavy for prongs of a night light to stay tightly in an outlet.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,267,444 (Black, Jr.) discloses a projection night light which has similar problems to Sutton, such as use of too many lenses, including (303) a reflector mirror, (105) (405) a condensing is, (106) (406) an adjust lens, (403) a grating lens corresponding to one disclosed in the current inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 5,667,736, and (415) a projection/object lens. Some of these lenses need to made of a glass material that is very fragile and will be broken because the assembly is too heavy to hold tight on an outlet. The Black patent also emphasizes that the night light projects the image onto a surface that is parallel to a path of the light beam, which means on the top of night light's wall. This is one reason why Black needs a lot of special optical lenses situated between glass lenses (109) (209) (309) (409).
Other prior art includes:    U.S. Pat. No. 6,824,296—Souze et al—Rotating lens with Bulb (78)    U.S. Pat. No. 6,889,918—Yaniv—Projector that is wearable and projects an image on a screen (12).    U.S. Pat. No. 7,329,035—Feliciano—Child Night Light to be held or worn.    U.S. Pat. No. 7,438,446—McCann—Projector inside (20) a hinged top box (this arrangement cannot pass USA safety standards because it cannot pass weight and pulling tests).
The current invention LED light for night time use including (A) a plug-in wall outlet night light or (B) a direct current operated night light, with projection features to project an image, message, data, logo, or time onto a ceiling, walls, floor, optics means surface or any other desired surface to be seen by a viewer.
The current invention has a light source in the form of an LED or plurality of LEDs (which may be the same as disclosed in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/255,981, now allowed) to supply visible light beams to an optics means or more than one optics means (as disclosed in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/806,284) and create an image to be projected onto a desired surface or location with additional features that may be selected from the group consisting of size, dimension, area, height, distance, color, brightness, time period, trigger means, light function, light performance, changeable focus, changeable slides, changeable geometric shape of the night light, and changeable projection head direction.
The current invention may incorporate optics means such as an optics-lens, concave lens, openings, cut-outs, film, grating means, hologram means (such as the hologram means disclosed in the inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 5,667,736) to create a preferred image onto a desired location or surface to be seen by a viewer.
The current invention combines features disclosed in the inventor's copending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 11/255,981 and 11/806,284 for more than one light source and optics means with features disclosed in the inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 5,667,736 for a grating or hologram to create a lot of images and get a best image projection on a wall, ceiling, floor, or surface of the optics means.